Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/343

 and in rushes the cause of it all—Mr. Julius De Haven. He pushes the foaming Bryce aside and bounces over to me like there's nobody in the hotel, or in New York for that matter, but me and him.

"Oh, you wonderful girl!" he hollers. "I owe everything to you! Your blessed scheme succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. I played Prince Danilo in 'The Girl from Betelgeuse' tonight as he has never been played before. Why, sweetness, I got an ovation! I was forced to take a dozen curtain calls after my first act alone and—oh, it's too much to tell you all at once! Seligman came to my dressing room and offered me a starring contract for next season and—why, darling, what's the matter?"

The matter was that I had simply passed out! Things were coming entirely too fast for little Giadys. Here I have living raving evidence before me that I have kidnapped the wrong man, yet Julius says the scheme went through! Then who in—eh—then who in the name of Kansas City kidnapped the right leading man?

I come to with Julius fanning me and trying to force me to drink water. I will not be forced to drink water, so I straighten up in time to see Charlemagne Rutledge burst into the crowd around me and throw his arms about his dear old roommate, Hemingway Bryce.

"Thank God you are safe!" bawls Charlemagne.